


One More Sunrise (Before the End of the World)

by driftingashes



Series: Quarantine Fics Because I Have No Inspiration [33]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Angst, Apocalypse, Character Death, Crying, Depression, Gen, Memories, Nostalgia, Post-Apocalypse, Reminiscing, Sad, Sad Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Sad Ending, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27883198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driftingashes/pseuds/driftingashes
Summary: Alone under the stars of a planet long devoid of any other life, Virgil mourns what he has lost.
Relationships: Platonic LAMP/CALM
Series: Quarantine Fics Because I Have No Inspiration [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021543
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	One More Sunrise (Before the End of the World)

Virgil taps his fingers against his side, a meaningless rhythm that both calms him and energizes him at the same time.

Thomas hasn't gotten any better, and Virgil knows with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that the end is drawing near. He reaches out and links their hands, tucking a lock of hair behind Thomas's ear.

"I can see them," Thomas gasps, and Virgil exhales shakily, squeezing his friend's hand even tighter. "They're waiting for us, Virge. They're waiting for us."

Hallucinations are part of the final stage, and Virgil knows it, but Thomas seems much too coherent, somehow.

It takes everything he has to keep holding Thomas's hand until his final breath leaves him. He stays for a while longer, memorizing the shape of his friend's face, the color of his eyes, the curve of his jaw, the sweep of his hair. When the sun starts to go down, he finally released him, and without even really thinking about it, starts to run. Right out the door, down onto the beach. He collapses in the sand, pulling his legs up to his chest and screaming through gritted teeth.

He cries until he can't breath, and gladly sinks into the blessed ignorance of unconsciousness.

It's nearly two months later when he has his first real breakdown, standing at the base of the stairs and crying until his head is pounding from the strain.

Holding onto Remus's stupid mace (just the handle - a jagged crack runs along the length of it and the top is splintered from where it had shattered against a wall the night Remus had been killed) clutching it so tightly his knuckles are white.

Looping Logan's tie around his wrist over and over until the fabric starts to stretch from the abuse and his hands lose circulation. Logan had taken it off and handed it to Virgil so it wouldn't get caught when he tried to sneak out for supplies with Patton. Patton had returned alone, an empty haunted look in his puffy eyes.

Snuggling under Patton's old cardigan, staring at the broken glasses on the coffee table. The cardigan had been a gift the night before the Apocalypse hit their city. Patton's glasses had fallen to the pavement when Roman had attacked him, lenses breaking on impact.

Tossing Janus's stupid hat up in the air and catching it on the way down. Nearly bouncing it off the ceiling once, and then resolving to be much more careful.

Staring brokenly at Roman's red scarf, one he had often pretended was a sash. He had left it at their shelter the day he had been bitten and attacked Patton. Virgil could still feel his skull caving in beneath the board Virgil had mindlessly, frantically swung at him. He hadn't even registered who his target was before Roman was already dead. All for the best. He wouldn't have been able to stomach it if he'd seen Roman's face first.

He doesn't sleep that night.

Alone under the stars of a planet long devoid of any other life, Virgil mourns what he has lost.

Memories rush to him that he never thought were significant. They blur by in a dizzying rush.

Patton picking apples from the tree in the backyard. Remus throwing a pear at Roman and laughing when he just barely misses catching it. Thomas and himself listening to Logan talk about breathing exercises. Logan reading by the light of a lamp early in the morning. Roman humming under his breath as he finishes up a poster for his room. He and Janus hissing at each other from opposite ends of the couch. Remus in his onesie lounging upside down in a chair. Roman pushing Remus off the couch during movie night.

He cries himself to sleep that night 

_Thomas Remus Roman Patton Thomas Logan Remus Roman Logan Janus Roman Thomas Janus Logan Roman Janus Patton Remus Thomas Roman Patton Janus Thomas-_

He dreams of his friends as they used to be, from afar as if a ghost outside his own body.

He and Logan are sitting on the swings under the apple tree, hand in hand, laughing about something, hands close together as they whisper their secrets to the pink and white blossoms.

Patton appears to be stuck in the monkey bars, but he's laughing, hair falling down in a messy wave. He smiles at their neighbor when the older boy moves to stand up and help him, gladly taking the other boy's hand and pulling himself through and out, landing heavily on his feet in the bark.

Roman is running across the grass with a young girl, maybe half his age. They both have sticks, messily carved into blunt swords, and every once in a while, they stop to clack the wood together in a silly makeshift fight.

Thomas sits on the park bench on the edge of the field, watching them all with a lazy smile on his face, not a care in the world.

Virgil (or his dream ghost form, anyways) stands at the edge of the field, drinking in the sight of them, and he's so caught up in seeing their faces that Logan's arms wrapping around him from behind startles him so badly he nearly jabs him in the throat with his elbow.

"Just me," Logan says gently. "How are you doing?"

Virgil leans back into the hug, closing his eyes contentedly. "I miss you all."

"We miss you too," Logan breathes against his ear, pressing a light kiss to his neck.

“Can I stay?” Virgil whispers, though he knows even the request itself is futile.

Logan’s next breath hits the back of his neck, real and warm and enough to make Remus shudder. “You know that you can’t yet, amor. I’m sorry. It’s not your time yet.”

Virgil nodded. “I know.”

"Soon."

When his eyes open, he can still feel Logan's warmth against him, and he laughs, choking on a sob. His gun is right where it always is, tucked under a scrap of fabric in his bedside table's broken drawer.

The sky starts to turn pink and gold, bathing the distant mountains in a halo of multi colored light. And Virgil laughs, squinting against the brightening horizon.

The gun lifts up under his chin almost before he comprehends the motion, and he closes his eyes briefly at the cool touch of the metal, but he opens his eyes again as the sky lightens, taking in the bright orange and pink and red and so many colours that he can’t even put names to them, and he laughs at the sheer beauty of it.

One more sunrise before the end of the world.


End file.
